Breakdown at the Racetrack | The Local
Once a lucrative gambling business, Ontario's horse racing industry is now heavily subsidized by the government.
安大略省的赛马业曾经是利润丰厚的赌博业，现在得到了政府的大力补贴。
As gamblers turn to online gaming, and ideas about animal welfare shift, a cluster of fatal horse injuries at Woodbine raises questions about the future of the sport.
随着赌徒转向在线游戏，以及动物福利观念的转变，伍德拜恩发生的一系列致命马匹受伤事件引发了人们对这项运动未来的疑问。
In late November, the horses race under the floodlights.
十一月下旬，赛马在泛光灯下赛跑。
Woodbine Racetrack’s season is long—from the end of April to the middle of December—and by the final weeks, when Toronto temperatures plunge and the sun sets early, the late afternoon races are held under artificial light in an atmosphere of eerie quiet, witnessed by just a smattering of fans huddling in the cold.
伍德拜因赛马场的赛季很长——从 4 月底到 12 月中旬——到了最后几周，多伦多气温骤降，太阳提前落山，下午晚些时候的比赛在人造光下、诡异的安静气氛中举行，只有少数粉丝在寒冷中挤在一起。
“When I first came, there used to be a lot more people in the grandstands,” says jockey Jason Hoyte.
“当我第一次来时，看台上的人要多得多，”骑师杰森·霍伊特说道。
“Things change.” The 39-year-old Barbados-born jockey arrived in Toronto in 2004 and worked as an exercise rider for 15 years.
“事情发生了变化。”这位出生于巴巴多斯的39岁骑师于2004年抵达多伦多，并从事了15年的健身骑手工作。
Then a fellow rider introduced him to a diet that worked, he cut weight to a punishingly light 116 pounds, and made the jump from training horses in the morning to racing them in the afternoon.
后来，一位骑手同伴向他介绍了一种有效的饮食方法，他将体重减至 116 磅，轻得惊人，并从早上训练马匹跳到下午参加比赛。
In the hierarchy of Woodbine jockeys, he describes himself as “average.” He’s not among the winningest riders, but he makes a living—$80 to $100 a race, plus a percentage of any prize money.
在伍德拜因骑师的等级制度中，他形容自己是“平均水平”。他并不是获胜次数最多的骑手之一，但他以每场比赛 80 至 100 美元的收入谋生，外加一定比例的奖金。
And each race, he knows, is another opportunity.
他知道，每场比赛都是另一个机会。
In the fourth race of the day on Nov.
在 11 月当天的第四场比赛中。
28, 2024, Hoyte’s mount was a two-year-old bay filly named Speight Rasees.
2024 年 12 月 28 日，霍伊特的坐骑是一匹两岁的海湾母马，名叫斯佩特·拉西斯 (Speight Rasees)。
The horse was like Hoyte—not some blue-blooded, highly touted prospect, but an animal squarely in the racetrack’s middle-class.
这匹马就像霍伊特一样——不是什么贵族、备受吹捧的新秀，而是赛马场中产阶级的一匹动物。
She had been bought as a yearling at auction for just $7,379 USD, far below the median selling price of $30,000, and had run her first race just a few weeks earlier, finishing well back of the winner.
她一岁鸽时在拍卖会上仅以 7,379 美元的价格被买下，远低于 30,000 美元的中位售价，并在几周前参加了她的第一场比赛，最终以远远落后于冠军的成绩完赛。
She was a horse who would never become a star, perhaps never win a stakes race.
她是一匹永远不会成为明星的马，也许永远不会赢得赌注比赛。
Which is to say she was like so many of the 1,750-odd horses at Woodbine—animals necessary for the business of the track but whose ceiling for success might be scraping together some purse money for their owners in a few end-of-season races.
也就是说，她就像伍德拜恩 1,750 多匹马中的许多马一样——这些动物是赛马场业务所必需的，但成功的上限可能是在几场季末比赛中为主人筹集一些钱。
When the bell rang, Speight Rasees got out of the starting gate cleanly.
当铃声响起时，斯佩特·拉西斯干净利落地冲出了起跑门。
As the horses made their way down the backstretch, she was running in second.
当马匹沿着后跑道前进时，她跑在第二位。
“Going down the back, everything was good,” remembers Hoyte.
“从后面走下去，一切都很好，”霍伊特回忆道。
Sometimes, he says, there’ll be an early indication that something’s not right with a horse.
他说，有时，早期迹象会表明马匹出现了问题。
With Speight Rasees, disaster came out of nowhere.
对于斯佩特·拉西斯来说，灾难突然降临。
“There wasn’t no warning,” he says.
“没有任何警告，”他说。
“[Her] front leg just snapped.” One moment the horse was charging around the track, making the turn for home.
“[她的]前腿刚刚折断。”有一瞬间，这匹马正在赛道上冲锋，准备转弯回家。
The next, she was plummeting toward the ground headfirst, her momentum sending her tumbling in an awful tangle of limbs.
接下来，她头朝下摔向地面，她的冲力使她四肢缠结，翻滚着。
During the fourth race of the day on Nov.
在 11 月当天的第四场比赛中。
28, 2024, Speight Rasees suffered a catastrophic breakdown and needed to be euthanized.
2024 年 12 月 28 日，Speight Rasees 遭受了灾难性的崩溃，需要被安乐死。
Video source: Woodbine Racetrack, obtained by The Local via BloodHorse.
视频来源：Woodbine Racetrack，由 The Local 通过 BloodHorse 获取。
Another horse crashed over Speight Rasees, unseating its rider, though both that horse and jockey would walk away from the accident.
另一匹马撞倒了斯佩特·拉西斯，导致骑手落座，不过那匹马和骑师都摆脱了事故。
Hoyte, meanwhile, hit the ground hard.
与此同时，霍伊特重重地摔在地上。
He sat on the track, stunned but still conscious, before he was helped to the jockey’s room.
他坐在赛马场上，惊呆了，但仍然清醒，然后被扶到骑师的房间。
He would later learn he had a broken shoulder that would keep him out of racing, and out of a job, until March.
后来他得知自己的肩膀骨折了，这让他无法参加比赛，也无法找到工作，直到三月份。
Speight Rasees was less fortunate.
斯佩特·拉西斯就没那么幸运了。
When a horse at the racetrack suffers a “catastrophic breakdown” there is little anyone can do.
当赛马场上的一匹马遭遇“灾难性故障”时，任何人都无能为力。
A thoroughbred racehorse is 1,000 pounds of muscle balanced atop four impossibly spindly legs.
一匹纯种赛马有 1000 磅的肌肉，平衡在四条极其细长的腿上。
You cannot ask a horse to keep its weight off a limb while a fracture heals.
你不能要求马在骨折愈合时将其重量减轻到肢体上。
Often the only answer is euthanasia.
通常唯一的答案是安乐死。
When this happens, racetrack protocol is carefully designed to both treat the horse as humanely as possible and to shield the public from the grisly reality.
当这种情况发生时，赛马场协议经过精心设计，既尽可能人道地对待马匹，又保护公众免受可怕现实的影响。
“They will pull out a tarpaulin, so the public don’t see what’s going on, and they will go from there,” explains Hoyte.
“他们会拉出防水布，这样公众就看不到发生了什么，然后他们就会离开那里，”霍伊特解释道。
An equine ambulance, which remains on call during every race, drives onto the track.
每场比赛期间都有一辆随时待命的马救护车驶入赛道。
If the horse is still on its feet, it is led aboard.
如果马还站着，就会被牵上车。
If not, the track veterinarian and the track crew manually pull the animal into the van.
如果没有，田径兽医和田径工作人员会手动将动物拉入货车。
The track vet euthanizes the animal through lethal injection.
田径兽医通过注射死刑对动物实施安乐死。
Forty minutes after the race began, Woodbine delivered the news over social media: “RACE 4 UPDATE: Speight Rasees (#8) fell and suffered a catastrophic injury and was humanely euthanized.
比赛开始四十分钟后，伍德拜因通过社交媒体发布了这一消息：“第四场比赛更新：斯佩特·拉西斯（Speight Rasees）（#8）摔倒并遭受灾难性伤害，并被人道安乐死。
Woodbine extends sincere condolences to the connections of Speight Rasees.”
伍德拜因向斯佩特·拉西斯的关系表示诚挚的哀悼。”
The death sent a fresh current of grief and anxiety coursing through the racetrack community, and indeed through the entire world of Ontario horse racing.
这一死亡事件给赛马界乃至整个安大略赛马界带来了新的悲伤和焦虑。
The death of any horse is devastating for those who work with the animal, of course.
当然，任何一匹马的死亡对于那些与动物打交道的人来说都是毁灭性的。
But Speight Rasees’s breakdown wasn’t an isolated incident.
但斯佩特·拉西斯的崩溃并不是一个孤立的事件。
It came in the midst of a string of confounding, disastrous deaths last November that brought uncomfortable attention to a sport that often exists in its own bubble.
去年11月发生了一系列令人困惑的灾难性死亡事件，这给这项经常存在于自己的泡沫中的运动带来了令人不安的关注。
A string of horse deaths raises questions, not just about the specific safety measures being taken at Canada’s biggest track, but about horse racing itself—an ancient sport that looks increasingly anachronistic in a 21st century context, where incentives around gambling, entertainment, and animal welfare coexist in complex, often contradictory ways.
一系列马匹死亡事件引发了人们的质疑，不仅涉及加拿大最大赛马场采取的具体安全措施，还涉及赛马本身——这项古老的运动在 21 世纪的背景下显得越来越不合时宜，围绕赌博、娱乐和动物福利的激励措施以复杂且往往相互矛盾的方式共存。
Horse racing in Toronto is as old as the city itself.
多伦多的赛马运动与这座城市本身一样古老。
In 1793, the same year the town of York was established, the first organized races were held between military officers and the local citizenry on a sandy stretch of land near Gibraltar Point known as “The Bend.”
1793 年，即约克镇建立的同一年，军官和当地民众在直布罗陀角附近的一片沙地上（被称为“弯道”）举行了首次有组织的比赛。
Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, as York became Toronto and horse racing became one of the premiere spectator sports in North America, racetracks sprouted up across the city.
在整个 19 世纪和 20 世纪初，随着约克成为多伦多，赛马成为北美最重要的观赏性运动之一，赛马场在整个城市如雨后春笋般涌现。
From Thorncliffe Park Raceway to Dufferin Park, Long Branch Park Racetrack to the original Woodbine Race Course in the east end, Torontonians flocked to see both thoroughbred racing and its less glamorous cousin, standardbred racing, in which horses pull small carts behind them.
从Thorncliffe Park Raceway到Dufferin Park，从Long Branch Park Racetrack到东端原来的Woodbine Race Course，多伦多人蜂拥而至，观看纯种马赛马和它不那么迷人的表亲标准马赛马，其中马匹在后面拉着小车。
The sport has always had a dual identity: both “the Sport of Kings,” with its history as a hobby for European aristocracy who owned and bred the animals, and a sport that has tolerated, and often romanticized, a colourful cast of gamblers, scoundrels, and petty criminals.
这项运动一直具有双重身份：既是“国王的运动”，历史上它是拥有和饲养动物的欧洲贵族的爱好，也是一项容忍并常常浪漫化的赌徒、恶棍和小罪犯的运动。
In Ontario, there were sporadic attempts from governments and temperance movements to ban gambling and clean up the sport.
在安大略省，政府和禁酒运动曾多次尝试禁止赌博并整顿这项运动。
But the creation of Woodbine Racetrack was the most successful move to turn a scattershot collection of horsemen, gamblers, and plutocrats into a professionalized business.
但伍德拜恩赛马场的创建是将一群散漫的骑手、赌徒和富豪转变为专业化企业的最成功举措。
The track was the vision of E.P.
这条赛道是 E.P. 的愿景。
Taylor—the business tycoon who author Kevin Chong calls “Canada’s most reviled plutocrat” in his book on the legendary horse Northern Dancer, but whose name is now revered within the sport he shaped and dominated.
泰勒（Taylor）是商业大亨，作家凯文·庄（Kevin Chong）在他关于传奇赛马“北方舞者”（Northern Dancer）的书中称他为“加拿大最受谩骂的富豪”，但他的名字现在在他塑造和主导的这项运动中受到尊敬。
In the 1950s, Taylor bought up a number of local racetracks and then promptly closed them, consolidating their racing licenses.
20 世纪 50 年代，泰勒买下了许多当地赛马场，然后迅速关闭它们，巩固了他们的赛车执照。
More horses, more races, and a longer season helped turn a hobby for the wealthy into a business where a racehorse owner could actually make some money.
更多的马匹、更多的比赛和更长的赛季帮助将富人的爱好变成了赛马主人实际上可以赚钱的生意。
And it was concentrated in the track he opened in 1956 to much fanfare—the “New Woodbine,” a supertrack in a corner of Rexdale in northwest Toronto that would become the horse racing epicentre of Canada.
它集中在他于 1956 年大张旗鼓地开设的赛马场——“新伍德拜因”，这是一条位于多伦多西北部雷克斯代尔一角的超级赛马场，后来成为加拿大赛马中心。
Today, the racetrack is the crown jewel of Woodbine Entertainment Group, the country’s biggest horse racing operator, which also runs the standardbred track Woodbine Mohawk Park in Milton and the horse racing gambling platform HPIBet.
如今，该赛马场是美国最大赛马运营商伍德拜恩娱乐集团 (Woodbine Entertainment Group) 皇冠上的明珠，该集团还运营着位于米尔顿的标准赛马场伍德拜恩莫霍克公园 (Woodbine Mohawk Park) 和赛马博彩平台 HPIBet。
Walk through the gates of Woodbine today, home to the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, and you’ll find monuments to the great horses of the past—photos of Dance Smartly and Secretariat, a life-sized statue of Northern Dancer.
今天，走进加拿大赛马名人堂所在地伍德拜恩的大门，您会发现过去伟大赛马的纪念碑——《Dance Smartly》和《Secretariat》的照片，以及真人大小的北方舞者雕像。
But the truth is the business of Woodbine has never been horses.
但事实是，伍德拜恩的生意从来都不是马。
The business is, and always has been, gambling.
生意就是赌博，而且一直都是赌博。
Woodbine has 168 race days a year and, with the exception of the King’s Plate, doesn’t charge admission.
Woodbine 每年有 168 个比赛日，除了 King's Plate 比赛外，不收取入场费。
There are a few ancillary revenue sources, like the restaurants in the building and the money the racetrack earns as a landlord.
还有一些辅助收入来源，例如大楼内的餐厅以及赛马场作为房东赚取的钱。
But the lifeblood of the sport is provided by the bettors—the middle-aged men in the paddock scrawling notes on their programs with golf pencils, the young couples throwing down two-dollar bets during an afternoon at the races, the hardcore gamblers watching over simulcasts from racetracks and off-track betting parlours across the continent.
但这项运动的命脉是由投注者提供的——围场里的中年男子用高尔夫球铅笔在节目上潦草地写着笔记，年轻夫妇在赛马场上花两美元下注，铁杆赌徒在整个大陆的赛马场和场外投注站观看同步转播。
The majority of every dollar gambled goes to paying out the winning bettors, but a significant cut—just under 15 cents for simple bets—is taken by the track.
所赌的每一美元的大部分都用于支付获胜的投注者，但赛道会收取相当大的分成（简单投注的佣金略低于 15 美分）。
That money, the “takeout,” is divided between the racetrack and the purse, the prize money won by a race’s top finishers.
这笔钱，即“外卖”，由赛马场和奖金分配，奖金由比赛中的顶尖选手赢得。
Purses are how you get money into the system.
钱包是您将钱存入系统的方式。
Racehorse owners are willing to shell out for the purchase, care, and training of their animals for all sorts of illogical reasons—vanity, a burning equine obsession, a gambling spirit.
出于各种不合逻辑的原因，赛马主人愿意花钱购买、照顾和训练他们的马——虚荣心、对马的痴迷、赌博精神。
But ultimately, the hope of being handsomely rewarded for winning a race is what provides the incentive to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars on yearlings at auction, and thousands a month to keep them.
但最终，赢得比赛而获得丰厚回报的希望促使人们在拍卖会上支付数十万美元购买一岁鸽，并每月支付数千美元来保留它们。
On a Saturday in August, there were 11 races with purses ranging from $28,600 to $150,000, with the lion’s share going to the winners (the other top finishers get smaller cuts, while the owners of the rest of the horses get nothing).
8 月的一个星期六，有 11 场比赛，奖金从 28,600 美元到 150,000 美元不等，获胜者将获得最大份额（其他顶级赛马获得较小的分成，而其余马匹的主人则一无所获）。
That money flows through the industry, paying for the grooms who muck out the stalls, the exercise riders who are up at dawn with the horses, the trainers, farriers, and the entire vast apparatus of professional horse racing in North America.
这些钱流经整个行业，支付给清理马厩的马夫、黎明时起床训练马匹的骑手、驯马师、蹄铁匠以及整个北美职业赛马的庞大机构。
At least, that’s how the economics of the sport used to work.
至少，这项运动的经济学过去是这样运作的。
But the finances underpinning the racetrack have been collapsing for almost as long as Woodbine Racetrack has existed.
但自从伍德拜因赛马场存在以来，支撑该赛马场的财务就一直在崩溃。
Horse racing was once the only form of legal gambling.
赛马曾经是唯一合法的赌博形式。
The story of the sport’s decline is, among other things, the story of an industry losing its monopoly power.
除其他外，这项运动衰落的故事也是一个行业失去垄断力量的故事。
A 2019 report from the Auditor General of Ontario documents how horse racing revenue in Ontario has been shrinking ever since lotteries became legal in 1969.
安大略省审计长 2019 年的一份报告记录了自 1969 年彩票合法化以来安大略省的赛马收入如何不断萎缩。
The introduction of slot machines in 1985 further ate away at the sport’s gambling dollars.
1985 年老虎机的推出进一步蚕食了这项运动的赌博资金。
Starting in 1998 in Ontario—and in many jurisdictions across North America—authorities eager for slot machine revenue, but reluctant to be seen opening up predatory new gambling depots in their communities, struck a deal.
从 1998 年开始，安大略省以及北美许多司法管辖区的当局渴望获得老虎机收入，但又不愿被人看到在其社区开设掠夺性的新赌博站，因此达成了一项协议。
In exchange for putting slots in racetracks, the tracks and horse racing industry would take 20 percent of revenue—10 percent to the tracks for race day costs and 10 percent directly to horse people, primarily through purses.
作为在赛马场设置插槽的交换条件，赛马场和赛马行业将抽取 20% 的收入，其中 10% 归赛马场用于比赛日费用，10% 直接归赛马人（主要通过钱包）。
By 2012/13, the program was pumping $335 million a year into Ontario horse racing.
到 2012/2013 年，该计划每年向安大略省赛马运动投入 3.35 亿加元。
That money was a mirage.
那些钱是海市蜃楼。
It papered over the growing gap between how much revenue the sport was able to bring in, and what was needed to maintain it.
它掩盖了这项运动能够带来的收入与维持收入所需的资金之间日益扩大的差距。
In 2012, the deficit reduction report known as the Drummond Report called the Ontario horse racing business “unsustainable” and called for reform: “It is time for the industry to rationalize its presence in the gaming marketplace so that the industry is more appropriately sustained by the wagering revenues it generates.”
2012年，被称为“德拉蒙德报告”的赤字削减报告称安大略省赛马业“不可持续”，并呼吁进行改革：“现在是该行业合理化其在博彩市场的存在的时候了，以便该行业能够通过其产生的投注收入更适当地维持下去。”
In the report’s wake, the Dalton McGuinty Liberal government moved to do just that, announcing the sudden end of the Slots at Racetracks program.
报告发布后，道尔顿·麦坚蒂自由党政府采取了行动，宣布突然终止赛马场老虎机项目。
Why, they argued, were hundreds of millions of dollars in slot machine money going to horse racing of all things?
他们认为，为什么数亿美元的老虎机资金会被用于赛马？
“At a time when we’ve got to find a way to reduce government spending, we’ve got to compare supporting the horse racing industry with supporting our schools and supporting our health care,” McGuinty said at the time.
麦坚蒂当时表示：“当我们必须找到减少政府支出的方法时，我们必须将支持赛马业与支持我们的学校和医疗保健进行比较。”
The outrage from horse people was immediate and overwhelming.
马人的愤怒是立即而势不可挡的。
Removing the slot machines, they warned, would destroy the industry.
他们警告说，取消老虎机将会摧毁这个行业。
Tens of thousands of jobs would be lost, not just at racetracks but across voter-rich rural Ontario, where racing money trickles down to everyone from the people who breed horses to the farmers who sell the straw for their stalls.
数以万计的工作岗位将会消失，不仅是在赛马场，而且在选民丰富的安大略省农村地区，赛车资金会流向每个人，从养马的人到卖草当马厩的农民。
An expert panel of former cabinet ministers, assembled to advise the government on how to help horse racing transition to self-sufficiency, laid out the economic reality in stark terms: “Without slots revenue or a new revenue stream, the horse racing industry in Ontario will cease to exist,” the report read.
一个由前内阁部长组成的专家小组聚集在一起，就如何帮助赛马过渡到自给自足向政府提供建议，他们以鲜明的措辞阐述了经济现实：“如果没有老虎机收入或新的收入来源，安大略省的赛马业将不复存在，”报告中写道。
And without racing, the authors added ominously, the government should prepare for the “humane dispatch and disposal of 7,500 – 13,000 horses in early 2013.”
作者不祥地补充道，如果没有赛马，政府应该为“2013 年初人道调度和处置 7,500 至 13,000 匹马”做好准备。
The Liberals backpedalled.
自由党退缩了。
In 2013, new premier Kathleen Wynne announced temporary funding to the industry.
2013 年，新任总理凯瑟琳·韦恩 (Kathleen Wynne) 宣布向该行业提供临时资金。
Over five years, the government would allocate $500 million to help horse racing transition from the slots program to a sustainable business model.
五年内，政府将拨款 5 亿美元帮助赛马从老虎机项目过渡到可持续的商业模式。
Starting in 2019, Doug Ford’s Conservatives made that deal permanent.
从 2019 年开始，道格·福特 (Doug Ford) 领导的保守党将这项协议永久化。
The long-term funding agreement for live horse racing sends the industry $105 million a year, funded by the OLG, for an astounding 19 years.
现场赛马长期资助协议每年为该行业提供 1.05 亿美元的资助，由 OLG 资助，资助时间长达 19 年，令人震惊。
And it’s just part of a series of government programs and grants designed to help Ontario breeders, owners, and others in the horse business.
这只是旨在帮助安大略省饲养员、马主和其他马业人士的一系列政府计划和拨款的一部分。
The deal was cautiously cheered by horse people.
这笔交易受到了马人的谨慎欢呼。
Raising a racehorse is a long-term investment—with about five years from breeding to potentially earning money at the track—and the funding brought some stability to the industry.
饲养赛马是一项长期投资——从繁殖到在赛马场上可能赚钱大约需要五年——而这笔资金给该行业带来了一定的稳定性。
But it also put horse racing in this province in wholly new territory.
但这也使该省的赛马运动进入了全新的领域。
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While racing has been dependent on government money for a while, there was the pretense, at least, that this funding was just temporary—a boost that would help bring a once thriving sport into its next successful era.
虽然赛车运动一段时间以来一直依赖政府资金，但至少有人假装这笔资金只是暂时的——这一推动将有助于将一项曾经蓬勃发展的运动带入下一个成功时代。
“We want to build an industry that is self-directed,” former Woodbine CEO and current Executive Chair Jim Lawson told industry publication Canadian Thoroughbred in 2019, emphasizing that new developments, particularly the casino that would open a few years later, would bring fresh revenues to the sport.
Woodbine 前首席执行官兼现任执行主席吉姆·劳森 (Jim Lawson) 在 2019 年向行业出版物《加拿大纯种马》表示：“我们希望建立一个自我导向的行业。”他强调，新的开发项目，尤其是几年后开业的赌场，将为这项运动带来新的收入。
“No one wants to operate a business that is dependent on government funding.
“没有人愿意经营一家依赖政府资助的企业。
We want to control our own destiny.”
我们想要掌控自己的命运。”
That pretense appears to be over.
这种假装似乎已经结束了。
The Auditor General’s report was scathing in its assessment of the industry’s lack of progress toward becoming sustainable, despite hundreds of millions in government funding over the years.
尽管多年来政府提供了数亿美元的资金，但审计长的报告严厉地评估了该行业在可持续发展方面缺乏进展。
With the new 19-year agreement, the report read, the government’s role had fundamentally changed: instead of helping the industry become self-sustaining, it was simply “sustaining the industry.”
报告称，根据新的为期 19 年的协议，政府的角色发生了根本性的变化：政府不再是帮助该行业实现自我维持，而只是“维持该行业”。
Michael Copeland became Woodbine Entertainment Group CEO in 2023.
迈克尔·科普兰 (Michael Copeland) 于 2023 年成为伍德拜恩娱乐集团 (Woodbine Entertainment Group) 首席执行官。
In an interview with The Local this summer, the lawyer and former CEO and President of the Canadian Football League acknowledged that horse racing was facing some headwinds.
今年夏天，这位律师、加拿大橄榄球联盟前首席执行官兼主席在接受《当地报》采访时承认，赛马运动正面临一些阻力。
“It’s an expensive sport to operate, and the primary means of doing so through wagering on races is not enough to support the purses,” said Copeland.
“这是一项运营成本高昂的运动，通过比赛投注来实现这一目标的主要手段不足以支撑钱包，”科普兰说。
But he said he remained optimistic—proud of the foundation Woodbine had built, and hopeful of bringing new fans to the sport.
但他表示，他仍然保持乐观，为伍德拜恩所建立的基础感到自豪，并希望为这项运动带来新的粉丝。
When I asked if becoming a financially independent industry was still a realistic aim, however, there was no equivocation.
然而，当我问成为一个财务独立的行业是否仍然是一个现实的目标时，我毫不含糊。
“I wouldn’t say in the foreseeable future that’s something that we anticipate reaching,” he said.
“我不会说在可预见的未来我们预计会实现这一目标，”他说。
That puts horse racing in a position that’s uncomfortable to defend.
这使得赛马运动处于难以防守的境地。
Each day at the track, hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money are paid out to the owners of racehorses, a large percentage of which is government subsidy.
赛马场每天都会向赛马主支付数十万美元的奖金，其中很大一部分是政府补贴。
Races are run out of contractual obligation, not because there is demand from the public for a full slate of Thursday-night racing in late November.
比赛是在合同义务之外进行的，并不是因为公众要求在 11 月底举行周四晚上的全部比赛。
When I visited one Friday in May, a total of $445,000 in purse money was up for grabs over eight races; I counted about 50 people in the grandstand.
当我五月的一个星期五去那里时，八场比赛总共有 445,000 美元的奖金可供争夺；我数了数看台上大约有50人。
Gambling on horse racing was once a vice that the authorities reluctantly put up with, not least because of the tax revenues it brought in.
赛马赌博曾经是一种恶习，当局不情愿地容忍，尤其是因为它带来的税收收入。
Today it is the opposite: a failing form of gambling supported by more successful betting options.
如今，情况恰恰相反：一种失败的赌博形式得到了更成功的投注选择的支持。
And as an industry dependent on government support, horse racing is now called upon to make an argument, not just that it’s a benign pastime that should be left alone, but that it is fundamentally in the public interest.
作为一个依赖政府支持的行业，赛马现在被要求提出一个论点，不仅是它是一种不应受到影响的良性消遣，而且它从根本上符合公共利益。
It was in that context, and with those pressures, that the horses started dying last fall.
正是在这种背景下，在这些压力下，马匹去年秋天开始死亡。
On Nov.
十一月一日
9, during the second race, a three-year-old filly named Social Dancer took an awkward step on the backstretch.
9月9日，在第二场比赛中，一匹名叫“社交舞者”的三岁母马在后伸展台上迈出了笨拙的一步。
In video of the race you can see veteran jockey David Moran easing her, the young horse’s unsteady gait painful to watch.
在比赛的视频中，您可以看到经验丰富的骑师大卫·莫兰（David Moran）正在放松她，这匹年轻马不稳定的步态看起来很痛苦。
She had to be euthanized.
她必须被安乐死。
That same afternoon, a stakes winner named Owen’s Tour Guide ridden by jockey Jose Campos went down in the eighth race.
当天下午，骑师何塞·坎波斯 (Jose Campos) 骑乘的冠军欧文导游 (Owen’s Tour Guide) 在第八场比赛中摔倒。
“In the middle of the turn, she just broke,” remembers Campos.
“在转弯的中间，她就断了，”坎波斯回忆道。
On that single disastrous day in November, between training on the track in the morning and racing in the afternoon, a total of six horses broke down, according to a report by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), which regulates horse racing in the province.
根据负责监管该省赛马活动的安大略省酒精和博彩委员会 (AGCO) 的一份报告，在 11 月的那个灾难性的一天，从早上在赛道上的训练到下午的比赛，总共有六匹马出现了故障。
Three required euthanasia.
三人需要安乐死。
Over the next weeks, Woodbine temporarily closed the track and brought in maintenance workers and consultants.
在接下来的几周里，伍德拜恩暂时关闭了赛道并聘请了维护人员和顾问。
Regulators from the AGCO descended, examining track conditions and ordering a variety of measures to protect horses.
AGCO 的监管人员前来检查赛道状况，并下令采取各种措施来保护马匹。
But the deaths kept coming.
但死亡不断发生。
On Nov.
十一月一日
16, it was a horse named Flawless Ruler.
16、那是一匹马，名叫无瑕尺。
On Nov.
十一月一日
24, three-year-old colt Tunechi took an awkward step early in the race and later had to be euthanized.
24日，三岁的小马图内奇在比赛初期迈出了笨拙的一步，后来不得不被安乐死。
Speight Rasees collapsed on Nov.
斯佩特·拉西斯 (Speight Rasees) 于 11 月 11 日倒下。
28.
28.
The next day, during the first race, two-year-old Mad Chatter had to be euthanized.
第二天，在第一场比赛中，两岁的疯狂喋喋不休不得不被安乐死。
By the time the season ended a few weeks later, it had been the most disastrous run in recent history.
几周后赛季结束时，这是近代历史上最灾难性的一次。
Between Oct.
十月之间
28 and Dec.
28日和12月
15, according to the AGCO, there were a total of 19 musculoskeletal injuries at Woodbine, 10 of which led to euthanasia.
15 日，据 AGCO 称，Woodbine 共有 19 人肌肉骨骼受伤，其中 10 人被安乐死。
For comparison, Saratoga Race Course, the storied New York track, reported just one racing-related fatality in all of 2024.
相比之下，著名的纽约赛马场萨拉托加赛马场在 2024 年全年仅报告了一起与赛车相关的死亡事件。
A series of breakdowns is the worst thing that can happen on a track.
一系列故障是赛道上可能发生的最糟糕的事情。
“There’s nothing more devastating,” says veteran trainer Catherine Day Phillips.
“没有什么比这更具破坏性的了，”资深教练凯瑟琳·戴·菲利普斯 (Catherine Day Phillips) 说道。
“It’s terrifying.
“这太可怕了。
It’s scary to go back out after that’s happened.” The deaths, the AGCO wrote in an official ruling on Nov.
发生这件事之后再出去是很可怕的。” AGCO 在 11 月 11 日的官方裁决中写道，死亡人数为
30, were “a threat to the long-term sustainability of the industry.” Online and at the track, there were calls to shut things down for the season.
30，“对行业的长期可持续性构成威胁”。在网上和赛道上，有人呼吁在本赛季停止比赛。
Following the Woodbine news from his farm near Cobourg, Ont., Colin Davis just felt nauseous.
科林·戴维斯在安大略省科堡附近的农场听到伍德拜恩的消息后，感到恶心。
The 42-year-old is a relatively young breeder, the owner of Apricot Valley Thoroughbreds.
这位42岁的马主是一位相对年轻的种马，也是杏谷纯种马的主人。
He’s a big guy from the country who isn’t the most emotional person in the world, but something about horses just gets to him.
他是一个来自乡下的大个子，并不是世界上最情绪化的人，但马的一些东西却让他着迷。
The first time he saw one of his horses race, he says, there were tears in his eyes.
他说，当他第一次看到他的马匹比赛时，他的眼里含着泪水。
“These are the babies you raise,” he said.
“这些是你养育的婴儿，”他说。
“We know all the little quirks about our horses.
“我们知道我们的马匹的所有小怪癖。
So when you sell them at auction and you don’t see them for a while, and then they pop up at the track, and you see how grown up they are, it’s just amazing.” Davis knows all of the time and emotion and money that goes into bringing a horse from birth to the moment it can actually compete.
因此，当你在拍卖会上出售它们时，你有一段时间看不到它们，然后它们突然出现在赛道上，你会看到它们已经长大了，这真是太神奇了。”戴维斯了解一匹马从出生到真正可以参加比赛的那一刻所花费的所有时间、情感和金钱。
And then for that horse to go down due to “something as simple as track maintenance, with no straightforward responses from management?
然后，那匹马会因为“像赛道维护这样简单的事情，而管理层没有直接的回应？”而倒下？
It makes you want to throw up,” he said.
这会让你想呕吐，”他说。
In their final investigation, the AGCO put the blame squarely on Woodbine officials.
在最终调查中，AGCO 将责任直接归咎于伍德拜恩官员。
The track’s maintenance was “inadequate and inconsistent with manufacturer guidelines” the AGCO wrote in a statement about the investigation.
爱科在一份有关调查的声明中写道，该赛道的维护“不充分且不符合制造商指南”。
(The AGCO declined to make the investigation itself public).
（AGCO 拒绝公开调查本身）。
They found “substandard grooming practices,” “undertrained and inexperienced maintenance personnel,” and an “absence of standardized maintenance protocols.” As part of their settlement with the AGCO, Woodbine donated $200,000 to organizations that support retired racehorses and instated a series of reforms designed to improve the track.
他们发现“不合格的疏导做法”、“维护人员训练不足且缺乏经验”以及“缺乏标准化的维护协议”。作为与 AGCO 和解协议的一部分，伍德拜恩向支持退役赛马的组织捐赠了 20 万美元，并实施了一系列旨在改善赛马场的改革。
Woodbine didn’t contest the report.
伍德拜恩没有对这份报告提出异议。
But in an interview with The Local this summer, racetrack executives rejected the AGCO’s findings.
但在今年夏天接受当地媒体采访时，赛马场高管拒绝了 AGCO 的调查结果。
“Anytime you investigate operations of any organization, on any function, there’s probably things you can find that you could be doing a little bit better,” said CEO Michael Copeland.
首席执行官迈克尔·科普兰 (Michael Copeland) 表示：“每当你调查任何组织、任何职能部门的运营情况时，你可能会发现有些事情可以做得更好。”
Woodbine, he says, was committed to making those improvements.
他说，伍德拜恩致力于做出这些改进。
“But we don’t believe that those things were material, causal factors in what transpired.”
“但我们不认为这些事情是所发生事件的实质性因果因素。”
Officials pointed to Woodbine’s record as one of the safer tracks on the continent.
官员们指出，伍德拜恩的赛道是非洲大陆最安全的赛道之一。
The main track is made of Tapeta, a synthetic racing surface that officials have long touted as safer than traditional dirt tracks.
主赛道由 Tapeta 制成，这是一种合成赛车路面，官方长期以来一直宣称它比传统的泥土赛道更安全。
In 2023, the year before the cluster of breakdowns, the track had a rate of 1.14 fatalities per 1,000 starts according to the Equine Injury Database (a start is each time a horse runs a race).
2023 年，即发生集群故障的前一年，根据马匹受伤数据库（出发是指马匹每次参加比赛），赛道每 1,000 场比赛的死亡人数为 1.14 人。
The North American average was 1.32 per 1,000 starts.
北美平均为每 1,000 次启动 1.32 次。
According to Woodbine executives, the primary cause of the breakdowns was an extreme temperature shift at the beginning of November.
据 Woodbine 高管称，故障的主要原因是 11 月初的极端气温变化。
“I think what occurred was we were towards the end of a season where a lot of horses had been running a lot, and we then ran into a kind of abnormal temperature change significantly within like two days,” said Bill Ford, Woodbine’s general counsel and executive vice-president of racing.
伍德拜恩赛马总法律顾问兼执行副总裁比尔·福特 (Bill Ford) 表示：“我认为当时发生的情况是，我们正处于一个赛季即将结束的时候，很多马匹都在奔跑，然后我们在两天之内就遇到了一种异常的温度变化。”
“And we probably didn’t get on top of softening [the track] up quickly enough, so it was a little bit firm.”
“而且我们可能没有足够快地软化[赛道]，所以它有点硬。”
But the ultimate causes of the fatal injuries, Ford said, couldn’t be reduced to any single issue: “They were multifactorial.”
但福特表示，造成致命伤害的最终原因不能归结为任何单一问题：“这是多因素造成的。”
That’s a buzzword that has become the standard industry response to any question about equine fatalities.
这是一个流行词，已成为行业对任何有关马死亡问题的标准回应。
It can sound like an official throwing up his hands and saying “it’s complicated” as a way to avoid responsibility.
这听起来就像一名官员举手说“这很复杂”，以此来逃避责任。
But the unsatisfying reality is there is often no clear, single answer to why a horse breaks down.
但令人不满意的现实是，对于马为什么会崩溃，通常没有明确、单一的答案。
Just as there were endless debates about what caused the rash of achilles injuries in the NBA last season—with competing theories about too many in-game minutes, the long-term effects of high-level junior play, training regimens that doesn’t emphasize the lower leg enough—so too is there no singular explanation for a string of catastrophic breakdowns.
正如关于上个赛季 NBA 跟腱受伤的原因引发了无休无止的争论——关于太多的比赛时间、高水平青少年比赛的长期影响、没有充分强调小腿的训练方案等相互竞争的理论——同样，对于一系列灾难性的故障也没有单一的解释。
If you talk to horse people candidly, a simpler, but ultimately more damning explanation emerges: death is just a normal, inevitable part of the business of racing.
如果你与马人坦诚地交谈，就会出现一个更简单但最终更具毁灭性的解释：死亡只是赛马事业中正常且不可避免的一部分。
Jose Campos, the jockey on one of the horses that went down on Nov.
何塞·坎波斯 (Jose Campos) 是 11 月 11 日摔倒的一匹马的骑师。
9, says the number of horses that broke down that day was highly unusual, and everyone at the track felt awful.
9号表示，那天发生故障的马匹数量极不寻常，赛场上的每个人都感觉很糟糕。
“But like we say, it’s part of the game.
“但就像我们说的，这是游戏的一部分。
The horses are athletes, so that happens.”
马匹是运动员，所以就会发生这种情况。”
“Unfortunately, sometimes things come in bunches, and it kind of distorts the picture of what is really the normality of things,” says trainer Kevin Attard.
“不幸的是，有时事情会成群结队地出现，这有点扭曲了事情的正常情况，”培训师凯文·阿塔德说。
Attard is one of the leading trainers at Woodbine, and the winner of back-to-back Queen’s Plates.
阿塔德是伍德拜恩的顶尖训练师之一，也是连续两届女王板的冠军。
When I spoke to him one morning in July, he was standing at the edge of the track watching two of his young horses getting accustomed to the starting gate.
七月的一天早上，当我与他交谈时，他正站在赛道边缘，看着他的两匹年轻马正在适应起跑门。
He’d been on the backstretch since about a quarter to 5:00 that morning, as he is every morning.
那天早上大约一刻钟到 5:00 左右，他就一直在后排休息，就像每天早上一样。
That dedication, Attard says, is what people who criticize the horse racing industry don’t see.
阿塔德说，批评赛马行业的人看不到这种奉献精神。
They don’t understand the treatment horses are given, that they have the best available doctors, the best of everything.
他们不了解马匹得到的治疗，他们拥有最好的医生，最好的一切。
“They can get an MRI in 48 hours,” he says.
“他们可以在 48 小时内进行 MRI 检查，”他说。
“They’re treated like a top player that works for the Maple Leafs.” If he could get reincarnated, he says, he’d get reincarnated as a racehorse.
“他们被当作枫叶队的顶级球员一样对待。”他说，如果他能转世，他会转世成为一匹赛马。
For critics of the sport, however, a series of breakdowns like what happened last fall at Woodbine is only the most dramatic proof that horse racing has no place in modern society.
然而，对于这项运动的批评者来说，去年秋天伍德拜恩发生的一系列故障只是赛马在现代社会中没有地位的最戏剧性的证明。
Patrick Battuello, founder of the anti-horse racing organization Horseracing Wrongs, has made ending the sport his explicit mission for years.
反赛马组织 Horseracing Wrongs 的创始人帕特里克·巴图埃洛 (Patrick Battuello) 多年来一直将结束这项运动作为自己的明确使命。
The entire sport, he argues, is no better than dog racing, a practice that has all but disappeared in the past few decades as public attitudes have shifted.
他认为，整个运动并不比赛狗好多少，随着公众态度的转变，这种做法在过去几十年里几乎消失了。
Racehorses may love to run, as horse people insist, but at the track they are coerced into running at unnatural speeds by people perched on them wielding whips.
正如养马人坚持的那样，赛马可能喜欢奔跑，但在赛马场上，骑在它们身上的人挥舞着鞭子，迫使它们以不自然的速度奔跑。
In recent years, following a series of reforms in the sport across North America, horse racing officials point to a significant decline in the number of horse fatalities.
近年来，随着北美地区对这项运动进行了一系列改革，赛马官员指出，马匹死亡人数大幅下降。
Battuello contests those numbers, but beyond that, he puts it as a moral choice.
巴图埃罗对这些数字提出质疑，但除此之外，他将其视为一种道德选择。
“What’s the acceptable level of killing?
“杀人的可接受程度是多少？
And to what end?” he says.
又要达到什么目的呢？”他说。
“We’re talking about an archaic form of gambling that can no longer compete in the 21st century.”
“我们谈论的是一种古老的赌博形式，它在 21 世纪不再具有竞争力。”
Everyone I spoke to on the track believed that what happened at Woodbine last fall should not have occurred; nobody I spoke to believed that they could stop horses from dying in the future.
我在赛道上采访过的每个人都认为去年秋天在伍德拜恩发生的事情不应该发生；与我交谈过的人中没有人相信他们可以阻止马匹在未来死亡。
How the public feels about that fact is likely to determine the sport’s future.
公众对这一事实的看法可能会决定这项运动的未来。
The first time I visited the Woodbine backstretch was as a teenager.
我第一次参观 Woodbine backstretch 是在十几岁的时候。
My best friend Paul’s mother, an immigrant from St Kitts, was part of the large Caribbean contingent of regulars at the track.
我最好的朋友保罗的母亲是来自圣基茨的移民，是赛道上加勒比海常客的一员。
Paul began working there as a teenager, starting out as a hot walker, and I tagged along with him and picked up a few shifts.
保罗十几岁的时候就开始在那里工作，一开始是一名热步行者，我跟着他，轮了几班。
At 14 or 15, we would sleep at his house, wake at 4:00 a.m.
14点或15点，我们会在他家睡觉，凌晨4:00起床。
to take a series of night buses out to the track, and spend the morning walking horses around and around the barns after their workouts.
乘坐一系列夜间巴士前往赛马场，早上在训练后在马厩周围遛马。
I was tiny, yet to hit my growth spurt, and I remember a trainer looking at me with an appraising eye.
我当时很小，还没有达到快速成长的阶段，我记得一位教练用评价的眼光看着我。
“You ever ride?” he asked.
“你骑过车吗？”他问道。
I quietly demurred.
我小声地表示反对。
The horses were majestic—glossy and powerful, bred for speed.
这些马匹雄伟、光彩照人、力量强劲，生来就是为了速度。
They were also terrifying, and seemed to instantly sense my utter lack of confidence and authority.
他们也很可怕，似乎立刻就感觉到我完全缺乏自信和权威。
But the universe of the track was fascinating, filled with characters that seemed like they’d stepped out of another time—the hard-bitten horsemen who rode on the highway down to Saratoga racetrack with the animals in their caravans , the death-defying jockeys who would knowingly jump on 1,000 pounds of horseflesh barreling at 40 miles an hour.
但赛道的世界是令人着迷的，充满了仿佛从另一个时代走出来的人物——那些顽强的骑手，带着商队里的动物，在通往萨拉托加赛马场的高速公路上驰骋；那些玩命的骑师，故意跳上 1,000 磅的马肉，以 40 英里的时速狂奔。
In the afternoon, we’d head over to the grandstand to gamble.
下午，我们去看台赌博。
The automatic terminals made underage betting easy, and we’d walk down to the paddock to try to get a tip from one of the jockeys—”What do you say, Sandy, you got a hot one?”—and then bet two dollars on some long shot to win.
自动终端机使未成年人投注变得容易，我们会走到围场，试图从一位骑师那里得到提示——“你说呢，桑迪，你有一个热门的吗？”——然后赌两美元在一些远胜的机会上。
The track was like some pocket universe in the middle of industrial Rexdale, its mixture of seediness and glamour instantly appealing.
这条赛道就像工业雷克斯代尔中心的某个袖珍宇宙，它的肮脏和魅力的混合立即吸引人。
It felt incredibly romantic.
感觉非常浪漫。
Decades later, to be honest, it still does.
几十年后，说实话，情况仍然如此。
Reporting this story, I visited the track and the backstretch multiple times over a long season.
为了报道这个故事，我在一个漫长的赛季中多次参观了赛道和后跑道。
In the grandstand one afternoon, I put two dollars on a horse called Little Teddy and found myself rising to my feet unconsciously along with the rest of the roaring crowd, a puppet on a string, as the horses pounded their way down the homestretch.
一天下午，在看台上，我把两美元放在一匹名叫“小泰迪”的马身上，当马匹沿着冲刺跑道猛冲而下时，我发现自己和其他咆哮的人群一起无意识地站了起来，就像一个提线木偶。
On the backstretch, exercise riders rolled past on bikes with whips in their back pockets while horses were everywhere—grazing on the grass in front of their stalls, bathing in the spray of a hose.
在后跑道上，锻炼的骑手们骑着自行车滚过，后面的口袋里装着鞭子，马匹到处都是——在马厩前的草地上吃草，沐浴在软管的喷雾中。
One morning I walked with trainer Catherine Day Phillips—backstretch royalty, in pearls and riding boots—as she checked on the horses in her barn, cradling the head of each one, murmuring compliments.
一天早上，我和驯马师凯瑟琳·戴·菲利普斯（Catherine Day Phillips）一起散步——她是一位后背伸展的皇室成员，戴着珍珠项链，穿着马靴——她检查马厩里的马匹，抱着每匹马的头，低声赞美。
Another morning I stumbled into Emma-Jayne Wilson, the highest-earning female jockey in history, 112 pounds of sly confidence.
另一个早晨，我偶然遇到了艾玛·杰恩·威尔逊 (Emma-Jayne Wilson)，她是历史上收入最高的女骑师，体重 112 磅，充满自信。
She swaggered over to Nathan Squires, a 61-year-old Barbados-born trainer, and gestured at his purple warm-up jacket.
她大摇大摆地走到 61 岁的巴巴多斯出生教练内森·斯奎尔斯 (Nathan Squires) 面前，指着他的紫色热身夹克。
“You know, they say purple is the colour of sexual frustration,” she said.
“你知道，他们说紫色是性挫折的颜色，”她说。
Squires glanced down in mock surprise.
乡绅低下头，假装惊讶。
“Then I better get two of these,” he said laughing.
“那我最好买两个，”他笑着说。
But if the backstretch retains its charm as a place cocooned from modernity, it also feels out of step with the world in more problematic ways.
但如果后延伸区保留了其作为一个远离现代性的地方的魅力，它也会以更多问题的方式让人感觉与世界格格不入。
In defence of its subsidies, the industry likes to boast about the thousands of jobs horse racing produces in the province—about 1,500 jobs on the backstretch, according to Woodbine, and 22,965 full-time equivalent jobs across the province, according to a 2019 impact study by the OLG.
为了捍卫其补贴，该行业喜欢吹嘘赛马业为该省创造了数千个就业机会——根据 Woodbine 的数据，赛马业在后期创造了约 1,500 个就业岗位，根据 OLG 2019 年的影响研究，在全省创造了 22,965 个同等全职工作岗位。
But the quality of many of those low-paying jobs, often taken by foreign workers because it is increasingly difficult to find anyone willing to take them here, is nothing to brag about.
但许多低薪工作的质量并不值得吹嘘，这些工作通常由外国工人承担，因为越来越难找到愿意接受这些工作的人。
The dorms on the backstretch, where some 250-odd people live throughout the season, are dilapidated.
整个赛季大约有 250 多人住在后段的宿舍，但宿舍已经破旧不堪。
Last winter, one track official proudly told me, they began distributing food baskets to workers who remained at the track through the long off-season.
去年冬天，一位赛道官员自豪地告诉我，他们开始向在漫长的休赛期留在赛道上的工人分发食物篮。
It seemed a worthy endeavour; but it suggests that employees need food baskets in order to survive—not a sign of a healthy industry.
这似乎是一项值得的努力；但这表明员工需要食物篮才能生存——这并不是行业健康的标志。
And indeed, despite the extensive government support, the sport is struggling.
事实上，尽管得到了政府的广泛支持，这项运动仍在苦苦挣扎。
If the financial story of racing is the story of an industry slowly losing its grip over the gambling business, then Ontario’s decision to launch an online casino market in 2022 was the final chapter.
如果说赛马的财务故事是一个行业慢慢失去对赌博业务控制的故事，那么安大略省在 2022 年推出在线赌场市场的决定就是最后一章。
“We thought when horse racing was introduced on [gambling app] Bet 365 that it would bring new customers to horse racing,” says Sue Leslie, the president of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association.
“我们认为，当 [赌博应用程序] Bet 365 上引入赛马时，它会为赛马带来新客户，”骑马者仁慈与保护协会主席苏·莱斯利 (Sue Leslie) 说。
“But it had the opposite effect.”
“但它产生了相反的效果。”
Today, a racing fan looking to bet on the horses online is greeted by numerous gambling products for far more popular sports, like football and hockey.
如今，想要在线投注赛马的赛马迷会遇到许多针对更受欢迎的运动（例如足球和曲棍球）的赌博产品。
More than just sports betting, horse racing is now competing with an entire universe of online gambling products offered by enormous corporations with mammoth marketing budgets that have perfected the dopamine-delivery-methods of mobile gambling.
赛马不仅仅是体育博彩，现在还与大型公司提供的整个在线赌博产品竞争，这些公司拥有庞大的营销预算，完善了移动赌博的多巴胺传递方法。
The Great Canadian Casino Resort, which opened at the racetrack in 2023 and was long seen as a vital new revenue source for the racetrack, has had a slower-than-expected start, according to CEO Michael Copeland.
首席执行官迈克尔·科普兰 (Michael Copeland) 表示，大加拿大赌场度假村 (Great Canadian Casino Resort) 于 2023 年在赛马场开业，长期以来一直被视为赛马场重要的新收入来源，但其开局速度慢于预期。
Why come out to the casino when you can gamble from the couch?
当你可以坐在沙发上赌博时，为什么还要去赌场呢？
“In terms of trying to capture and retain your customers, you’re competing against some real Goliaths that have some very, very well structured operations,” he said.
他说：“在试图吸引和留住客户方面，你正在与一些真正的巨人竞争，他们的运营结构非常非常好。”
The horse people I spoke with expressed frustration with the OLG, which is both their benefactor and their primary competitor.
与我交谈的马人表达了对 OLG 的失望，OLG 既是他们的恩人，也是他们的主要竞争对手。
If only they would allow more varied betting options, maybe a quick ticket you could buy from the convenience store, next to the lottery tickets, that let you bet on the horses?
如果他们允许更多不同的投注选择，也许您可以从便利店购买一张快速彩票，在彩票旁边，让您可以投注马匹？
But the OLG’s primary mandate is to earn money to pay for Ontario’s public services; why would they introduce a product to help the horse industry at the expense of their other offerings?
但 OLG 的主要任务是赚钱来支付安大略省的公共服务；为什么他们要以牺牲其他产品为代价来推出一种产品来帮助马业？
Any loss of gambling revenue is an accelerant to a vicious cycle.
任何赌博收入的损失都会加速恶性循环。
It leads to smaller purses, which makes the sport less attractive to owners (the signs throughout Woodbine urging visitors to “become an owner” suggest that things are dire).
这导致钱包变小，从而降低了这项运动对主人的吸引力（伍德拜因各处敦促游客“成为主人”的标志表明情况很可怕）。
That leads to fewer horses being bred in the province.
这导致该省饲养的马匹减少。
Fewer horses means smaller field sizes, which are far less attractive to gamblers, which leads to fewer betting dollars, and the cycle continues.
马匹越少意味着场地规模越小，这对赌徒的吸引力就小得多，从而导致投注金额减少，如此循环下去。
This is the death spiral horse people lose sleep over.
这就是让人失眠的死亡螺旋马。
“The economics of breeding and owning race horses doesn’t make sense anymore,” says Sue Leslie bluntly.
“饲养和拥有赛马的经济效益已经不再有意义，”苏·莱斯利直言不讳地说。
Leslie is a giant in the industry, a member of the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, and a horse owner herself since the 1970s.
Leslie 是业界巨头，加拿大赛马名人堂成员，自 20 世纪 70 年代以来就是马主。
Back then, she remembers Woodbine as a very different place.
那时，她记得伍德拜恩是一个非常不同的地方。
“The racetrack was full, the grandstand was full, the restaurants were vibrant,” she says.
“赛马场挤满了人，看台挤满了人，餐厅也热闹非凡，”她说。
“A lot of that is gone.”
“其中很多都消失了。”
On a rainy afternoon in June, Premier Doug Ford, Woodbine executive chair Jim Lawson, Mayor Olivia Chow, and any local politician who could finagle their way in front of the cameras stood under a tent at the track to make an announcement.
六月一个下雨的下午，省长道格·福特、伍德拜恩执行主席吉姆·劳森、市长周奥利维亚以及任何能在镜头前耍花招的当地政客都站在赛马场的帐篷下宣布这一消息。
They had broken ground on a new Metrolinx GO station on the Kitchener Line that would, with $170 million of investment from Woodbine, connect the track to the rest of the city.
他们在基奇纳线 (Kitchener Line) 上新建的 Metrolinx GO 车站已破土动工，Woodbine 投资了 1.7 亿美元，该车站将把轨道与城市的其他地区连接起来。
That station was an important step in what Woodbine envisions as a massive new development.
该站是伍德拜恩设想的大规模新开发项目的重要一步。
The racetrack’s sprawling property is 684 acres—the largest undeveloped parcel of land in the city of Toronto, roughly as big as the entire downtown core south of Queen Street.
赛马场占地 684 英亩，是多伦多市最大的未开发土地，大约与皇后街以南的整个市中心核心区一样大。
Explaining the vision in an interview with The Local , Michael Copeland said the station would “unlock” the value of Woodbine.
迈克尔·科普兰 (Michael Copeland) 在接受《The Local》采访时解释这一愿景时表示，该电台将“释放”伍德拜恩的价值。
“That really will be the anchor of a very comprehensive, major real estate development that is going to allow us to generate significant annual revenues that we will then put back into support racing,” he said.
他说：“这确实将成为一个非常全面的大型房地产开发的支柱，这将使我们能够产生可观的年收入，然后我们将把这些收入重新投入到支持比赛中。”
It is going to have entire neighbourhoods—“29,000 housing units, 60,000 residents”—and all of that development in service of the racetrack at the centre of it.
它将拥有整个社区——“29,000 个住房单元，60,000 名居民”——所有这些开发项目都是为中心的赛马场服务的。
“It’s something that was envisioned decades ago by E.P.
“这是 E.P. 几十年前就预见到的事情。
Taylor, when he purchased the land,” says Copeland.
泰勒购买土地时，”科普兰说。
It was an audacious vision.
这是一个大胆的愿景。
Could you build an entire city-within-a-city out here, in a poor neighbourhood under the flight path of Pearson Airport’s planes, with the express purpose of supporting an increasingly unpopular sport?
你能在皮尔逊机场飞机飞行路线下的一个贫困社区建造一座完整的城中城，其明确目的是支持一项日益不受欢迎的运动吗？
It was possible.
这是可能的。
But as Copeland expanded on the track’s development plans—the visions of parks and shopping centres, homes and businesses—the obvious question kept intruding.
但随着科普兰扩展赛道的开发计划——公园和购物中心、住宅和企业的愿景——明显的问题不断出现。
What in god’s name were horses doing in the middle of all of this?
天哪，马在这一切之中到底在做什么？
By 2038, when the government’s current 19-year agreement is up and the early stages of this development aim to be complete, how will the public feel about racehorses?
到 2038 年，当政府当前的 19 年协议到期并且这一发展的早期阶段即将完成时，公众会对赛马有何看法？
That’s the question that hangs over the industry.
这是整个行业面临的问题。
The phrase used in horse racing circles these days is an academic one—social license to operate.
如今赛马界使用的术语是学术术语——社会经营许可证。
That’s not a document, or a piece of legislation, but the general sense that society approves of what you’re doing.
这不是一份文件，也不是一项立法，而是社会认可你所做的事情的普遍感觉。
It’s hard to define.
很难定义。
But if you lose it, you lose everything.
但如果你失去了它，你就失去了一切。
Today, a racehorse exists in a very specific, strange corner of the human imagination.
如今，赛马存在于人类想象中一个非常具体、奇怪的角落。
Racehorses are not beloved pets, or members of the family, as the animal-friendly marketing suggests.
正如动物友好型营销所暗示的那样，赛马不是受人喜爱的宠物，也不是家庭成员。
In claiming races—in which every horse running is up for sale at a pre-approved price—animals are shuffled back and forth by owners like any other asset, moved from barn to barn, trainer to trainer.
在认领比赛中——每匹赛马都以预先批准的价格出售——马匹像任何其他资产一样被主人来回移动，从一个马厩转移到另一个马厩，从一个驯马师转移到另一个驯马师。
Nor are they professional athletes; they do not take to the track of their own agency and with knowledge of the possible consequences.
他们也不是职业运动员；他们不采取自己的行动，也不了解可能的后果。
They may love to race, as horse people insist.
正如马人坚持的那样，他们可能喜欢比赛。
But if they don’t, they do not have a choice.
但如果他们不这样做，他们就别无选择。
A racehorse, instead, is some strange combination of a pet, an investment in a work of fine art, and any other disposable head of livestock.
相反，赛马是宠物、艺术品投资和任何其他一次性牲畜头的奇怪组合。
Above all, it is a financial asset.
最重要的是，它是一种金融资产。
That doesn’t mean racehorses aren’t loved and cared for.
这并不意味着赛马不受喜爱和照顾。
But it costs approximately $40,000 a year to keep a thoroughbred, according to the HBPA’s Sue Leslie.
但据 HBPA 的苏·莱斯利 (Sue Leslie) 称，饲养一匹纯种马每年的成本约为 40,000 美元。
And they must pay their way.
他们必须付出自己的代价。
When track officials say they would do anything for their horses, then, it comes with an unsaid proviso: so long as it keeps the current business model intact.
当田径官员表示他们愿意为自己的马匹做任何事情时，就会附带一个未明说的附加条件：只要保持当前的商业模式完好无损即可。
The stewards of the sport are hyper aware of the fragility of an industry dependent on the goodwill of the public.
这项运动的管理者非常清楚这个依赖公众善意的行业的脆弱性。
“When you have an industry that’s supported by government, and if you had a sizable faction within the general public that’s against an industry being funded by the government, that doesn’t bode well for continued government support,” says CEO Michael Copeland.
首席执行官迈克尔·科普兰 (Michael Copeland) 表示：“当一个行业受到政府支持时，如果公众中有相当大的派别反对政府资助的行业，那么这对于政府的持续支持来说并不是一个好兆头。”
Once the public opinion turns, it can be impossible to hold back.
舆论一旦转向，就无法挽留。
Today, the racetrack is one of the few remaining places where animals are employed solely for our entertainment.
如今，赛马场是仅存的少数动物仅用于娱乐的地方之一。
But not long ago, there were greyhound racetracks across the continent.
但不久前，整个非洲大陆都出现了灰狗赛马场。
Families flocked to the Ringling Brothers Circus to watch elephants parade in circles.
家人聚集到林林兄弟马戏团观看大象绕圈游行。
Marineland brought in crowds of families to watch trained orcas leap through the air.
马林兰吸引了成群的家庭前来观看训练有素的逆戟鲸在空中跳跃。
And then things changed—slowly at first, then all at once.
然后事情发生了变化——一开始很缓慢，然后突然发生了变化。
This year, the disaster of last fall’s string of deaths hasn’t been repeated.
今年，去年秋天的连环死亡灾难没有重演。
There have only been three fatalities thus far this season.
本赛季到目前为止，只有三人死亡。
But death remains a normal part of horse racing.
但死亡仍然是赛马的正常组成部分。
On June 28, Patches O’Houlihan, the reigning horse of the year and the most celebrated animal at Woodbine, suffered a soft-tissue injury while winning a stakes race.
6 月 28 日，年度卫冕马匹、伍德拜因最著名的赛马帕奇斯·奥霍利汉 (Patches O’Houlihan) 在赢得一场赌注比赛时遭遇软组织损伤。
A week and a half later, he was euthanized.
一周半后，他被安乐死。
Watching the press conference that day in June—as track officials and local politicians painted a vision of a horse-racing-focused community of the future—my mind kept returning to a moment earlier that morning, on that same stretch of track.
看着六月那天的新闻发布会——赛场官员和当地政客描绘了未来以赛马为中心的社区的愿景——我的思绪不断回到那天早上早些时候，在同一条赛道上的那一刻。
The horses were training when the track cleared and what sounded like an air raid siren went off.
当马匹正在训练时，跑道变得空旷，空袭警报响起。
A horse was loose.
一匹马松了。
Free from its rider, the big bay animal was running wild.
摆脱了骑手的束缚，这只大海湾动物开始狂奔。
Its saddle had come loose, and was hanging around its hind legs as it kicked and bucked, trying to free itself.
它的马鞍松了，挂在后腿上，它又踢又跳，试图挣脱束缚。
One of the outriders in his red coat pursued it, trying to sidle up alongside the animal without any luck, before the horse charged off again, still kicking.
一名身穿红色外套的骑手追赶它，试图侧身靠近这匹马，但没有成功，然后这匹马再次冲走，仍然在踢腿。
In so much of my reporting at the track, the horses had remained strangely abstract.
在我对赛马场的大部分报道中，马匹仍然保持着奇怪的抽象。
They were numbers on the page—long shot bets, or assets to be sold and resold.
它们是页面上的数字——长期赌注，或待出售和转售的资产。
They were avatars for arguments from animal rights activists.
他们是动物权利活动人士争论的化身。
Even when I’d seen them in the flesh, led by hot walkers or standing quietly in their stalls, they’d somehow seemed like passive characters in their own stories.
即使当我亲眼看到他们，由火热的步行者牵着走，或者静静地站在他们的摊位上时，他们在某种程度上看起来就像是他们自己故事中的被动角色。
That morning, though, as the entire track paused to watch a wild-eyed, 1000-pound animal kick and buck in distress, the loose horse was disarmingly real—a living creature, the result of generations of careful breeding, whose only reason for existence in this corner of Toronto was to run for a shrinking number of gamblers.
然而那天早上，当整个赛马场都停下来观看一匹重达1000磅的动物在痛苦中踢腿和翻腾时，那匹脱缰的马却真实得令人心旷神怡——它是一匹活生生的动物，是几代人精心培育的结果，它存在于多伦多这个角落的唯一理由就是为了为越来越少的赌徒而奔跑。
At last the outrider managed to head off the horse, galloping alongside it and steering it toward the gap and down the tunnel.
最后，护卫成功地把马甩下来，与它并肩疾驰，引导它驶向缺口，驶入隧道。
It went madly running toward the barns and out of sight, while back on the track the alarm ceased, the riders reemerged, and the business of horse racing resumed.
它疯狂地跑向谷仓，消失在视线之外，而回到赛马场时，警报停止了，骑手们重新出现，赛马活动又恢复了。
Nicholas Hune-Brown is an award-winning magazine writer and Executive Editor at The Local .
尼古拉斯·休恩-布朗 (Nicholas Hune-Brown) 是一位屡获殊荣的杂志作家和 The Local 的执行编辑。
Follow @nickhunebrown.bsky.social , email nick@thelocal.to .
关注 @nickhunebown.bsky.social ，发送电子邮件至 nick@thelocal.to 。
Chloë Ellingson is a Toronto-based documentary photographer and visuals editor at The Local.
Chloë Ellingson 是一位驻多伦多的纪实摄影师和 The Local 的视觉编辑。
Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Walrus and The Globe and Mail.
她的作品曾出现在《纽约时报》、《海象报》和《环球邮报》上。
You can reach her by email at chloe@thelocal.to , on Instagram at @chloeellingson , or on Bluesky at @chloeellingson.bsky.social .
您可以通过电子邮件 chloe@thelocal.to、Instagram @chloeellingson 或 Bluesky @chloeellingson.bsky.social 与她联系。
We're able to produce impactful, award-winning journalism thanks to the generous support of readers.
感谢读者的慷慨支持，我们能够制作出有影响力、屡获殊荣的新闻报道。
By supporting The Local, you're contributing to a new kind of journalism—in-depth, non-profit, from corners of Toronto too often overlooked.
通过支持 The Local，您将在多伦多经常被忽视的角落为一种新型新闻事业做出贡献——深入、非营利。
In different corners of Toronto, human and animal worlds are colliding in unexpected ways.
在多伦多的不同角落，人类和动物世界正在以意想不到的方式发生碰撞。
From divisive fights over cormorants and coyotes, to the rise and fall of niche industries, to the sudden explosion in the bunny population, Wild Wild City explores our shifting relationship with the creatures among us.
从关于鸬鹚和土狼的分裂斗争，到利基产业的兴衰，再到兔子数量的突然爆炸，《狂野城市》探索了我们与身边生物之间不断变化的关系。
Nearly all bait worms sold in North America are hand-plucked from farmland in this part of Canada.
北美销售的几乎所有诱饵蠕虫都是从加拿大这一地区的农田中手工采摘的。
But with labour shortages and climate change, some worry we’re witnessing the final wiggles of a once thriving business.
但随着劳动力短缺和气候变化，一些人担心我们正在目睹曾经繁荣的企业最后的摇摆。
With the emergence of drug-resistant nits, lice removal has become a booming business, catering to harried, itchy parents willing to pay for relief.
随着抗药性虱子的出现，去除虱子已成为一项蓬勃发展的业务，迎合了那些愿意花钱救济的忙碌、发痒的父母。
For humans, the virus has the potential to spark the next pandemic.
对于人类来说，该病毒有可能引发下一次大流行。
But for wildlife, it's already causing devastation.
但对于野生动物来说，这已经造成了破坏。
I never used to see rabbits in Toronto.
我以前在多伦多从来没有见过兔子。
Then they were everywhere.
然后他们就到处都是。
Then I lost my mind.
然后我失去了理智。
Ontario’s lax regulations have made the province the “wild west” for exotic animals.
安大略省宽松的法规使该省成为外来动物的“狂野西部”。
But as public concern over animal welfare grows, some zoos are buckling under the pressure.
但随着公众对动物福利的关注日益增加，一些动物园在压力下屈服了。
The Toronto waterfront is home to the largest colony of cormorants in North America.
多伦多海滨是北美最大的鸬鹚群落的家园。
And now they're spreading—squawking, puking, leaving toxic guano.
现在它们正在蔓延——嘎嘎叫、呕吐、留下有毒的鸟粪。
Inside the fight between residents, conservationists, and governments over the most divisive and persecuted bird on the planet.
讲述居民、自然资源保护主义者和政府之间围绕地球上最分裂和受迫害的鸟类的斗争。
Growing a city means constantly pushing up against the border between the urban and the wild.
城市的发展意味着不断突破城市与野外的边界。
From coyotes to cormorants, how do we share space with creatures we don’t always like?
从土狼到鸬鹚，我们如何与我们不喜欢的生物共享空间？